Shopping at traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers is currently under pronounced assault, particularly by the advent of on-line retailers. A substantial cause is likely the numerous inefficiencies associated with shopping at traditional stores, particularly given the increasing intolerance of today's shoppers to indulge time-wasting activities.
Often the inefficiencies associated with shopping at a traditional store begins before a shopper walks into the store. Upon pulling into the store's parking lot, shoppers often spend substantial time trying to locate a parking space. This loss of time can be exacerbated when an apparently empty parking space is taken by another driver or contains a shopping cart, broken glass, or other parking impediment. Upon parking, the driver, and possibly the passengers, must spend additional time walking to the store entrance. After shopping, still more time is spent walking from the store to the shopper's vehicle.
The inefficiencies further include the time wasted by traveling to a store, only to find that the store does not have an expected product. Even if the store normally carries the product, shoppers all too frequently discover that the item is currently out-of-stock, or not on the shelves. Moreover, finding a store employee to check the store's inventory for a normally-stocked product that is absent from its shelf location can be unduly time-consuming. Even if the desired item is on the shelf, if the shopper is unfamiliar with the store, the shopper often must spend substantial time locating the item within the store.
Moreover, shoppers can lose substantial amounts of time waiting to check-out of a store. Typically, with little more than a hunch to guide them, shoppers select one of numerous check-out lines, hoping the selected line will minimize the shopper's check-out wait. All too often, shoppers guess incorrectly, judging by the expressions of frustration frequently heard in check-out lines. These frustrations can be heightened when a shopper discovers that a chosen check-out line is restricted to a certain number of items, or to cash-only shoppers.
Shoppers have few, if any, means for reducing or eliminating these, and other, inefficiencies commonly associated with shopping at traditional stores, short of foregoing shopping at these stores altogether. Thus, there is need for devices, methods, and/or systems for improving the efficiency of shopping at traditional stores.